Fuel Cell Nation

Volkswagen Consent Decree Fallout: EPA Treats EVs better than FCEVs!

In the news release from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Headquarters announcing a major step towards resolving last year's VW diesel engine emissions scandal, emphasis is placed on the fairness of the $14.7 Billion partial settlement between Volkswagen, the EPA and California Air Resources Board (CARB). Yes, up to $10.03 billion is set aside to compensate consumers under the program, $2.7 billion will fund projects across the country that will reduce emissions of NOx, and VW will "invest" $2 billion toward improving infrastructure, access and education to support and advance zero emission vehicles (ZEVs). Unfortunately, it appears that in the EPA's eyes, the class of ZEVs that include plug-in electric vehicles (EVs) will receive more assistance than fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs). In my eyes, this unequal footing of EVs and FCEVs is not fair.

The text of the partial consent decree details how the $2 billion "investment" by VW will be "invested" over the prescribed 10-year period. Appendix C details the allowable financial assistance for EV charging stations and FCEV hydrogen refueling stations:

• 60-100% of the cost for EV charging stations, depending on the level of public access, but only
• 25-35% of the cost for FCEV hydrogen refueling stations, depending on the size of the station (expressed in kg/day.)

Obviously, it appears that the EPA (and CARB) have decided to not use a level playing field, but instead have chosen to provide over twice the financial incentive percentage to electric vehicles, relative to hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

This is quite disappointing, especially due to the nascent state of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Anyone familiar with technoeconomic analysis knows that new technologies (e.g. FCEVs) are generally more expensive than more established technologies (e.g. EVs). This is due to the fact that costs always come down as technologies mature, coupled with the fact that the increasing adoption of new technologies leads to economies of replication (hello assembly lines!). On this basis alone, I would recommend that the EPA (and CARB) revise their plans, and allow financial incentives of 60-100% for FCEV refueling stations, matching the incentive rates for battery electric vehicles.

 To summarize, it is good that the first VW emissions scandal settlement includes financial incentives to speed the adoption of EVs and FCEVs. Unfortunately, it is bad that the VW settlement provides significantly larger rates of financial incentives for FCEV hydrogen refueling stations.

Jim McElroy and NASA's Gemini Fuel Cell

With thanks to Robert Melusky, who posted this nice photo on Fuel Cell Nation's Facebook page.

Here is a nice photograph of the late Jim McElroy posing with a Gemini fuel cell module (container only) made from spare parts after the program ended. All the flight hardware burned up in re-entry. The documents on the table are the original GE manuals that were being discarded along with the parts.

Additional details about Jim's passing are in this post: Jim McElroy, Fuel Cell Pioneer.

https://www.facebook.com/robert.melusky

US DOE Hydrogen Vehicle Demonstration Webinar

On Monday, February 6 from 12:00 to 1:15 p.m. Eastern Standard Time the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) are putting on a webinar titled "National Hydrogen Learning Demonstration Status." Supported by the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, the Learning Demonstration is coming to a close this quarter. In the webinar you will learn more about DOE and industry metrics such a fuel economy, fuel cell durability, refueling time, and station utilization as well as the status of stations and fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) deployed through the project.

In April 2004, DOE selected four teams to take part in the Hydrogen Learning Demonstration. Teams were led by Chevron (team included Hyundai-Kia Motor Co.; UTC Fuel Cells); Daimler (team included BP America; Ballard; DTE Energy; NextEnergy); Ford Motor Company (team included BP America; Ballard; NextEnergy; California Department of General Services; Sacramento Municipal Utility District; Florida Department of Environmental Protection; Progress Energy; City of Taylor, MI; City of Ann Arbor, MI) and General Motors Corp (team included Shell Hydrogen; Viewpoint Systems, Inc.; Quantum Technologies, Inc.; NextEnergy; U.S. Army; U.S. Marine Corps; State of Maryland). Additionally, Air Products and Chemical, Inc. provided station data through its DOE-funded California Hydrogen Infrastructure Project (CHIP).

The vehicle data was collected from 183 fuel cell electric vehicles spanning 154,000 hours of operation, 3.5 million miles, and more than 500,000 trips. Refueling station data was collected from 25 stations, which produced or dispensed 152,000 kg of hydrogen while fueling the vehicles approximately 33,000 times in all. The project was funded through DOE awards totaling $140 million, with an additional $188 million in cost-share provided by industry partners.

Hopefully these DOE and NREL efforts will enable the expansion of domestic fuel cell activities!

Local Electrochemical Society Fall 2011 Meeting

After a several year hiatus, Professor Sanjeev Mukerjee, Section Chair of the New England local section of the Electrochemical Society, recently hosted the initial Fall 2011 local section meeting:

http://www.northeastern.edu/newenglandecs/

The meeting, the first of the 2011 - 2012 ECS local chapter Seminar Series, was held in the Egan Research Center at Northeastern University. There was a reception, followed by a Lecture and Dinner. Numerous undergraduate and graduate students were on hand, from both Northeastern and MIT. Commercial companies included small businesses like Giner, Inc., branches of large corporations like Hamilton Sundstrand (a subsidiary of United Technologies), and the venture capital-funded Sun Catalytix.

The speaker was Dr. K. M. Abraham, Research Professor at the Northeastern University Center for Renewable Energy Technologies. The topic was 'Rechargeable Batteries for Long Range Electric Vehicles'

The abstract: "Today's lithium ion batteries are unable to meet the energy density and cost profiles of 200-300 mile all-electric vehicles. Low cost rechargeable batteries with specific energies exceeding 500 Wh/kg are needed to make such vehicles widely attractive to consumers. In this talk, I will present a brief update of the energy density and cost evolution of lithium ion battery technology. The prospects for new materials for ultrahigh energy density batteries will be discussed with updates on the rechargeable Li-air and Li-sulfur systems."

The talk was an interesting mix of the history of lithium batteries, as well as a review of some recent lithium battery research.

Professor Mukerjee announced that the next seminars will be held in October and November. I'm looking forward to seeing what the topics will be!

How Safe is Hydrogen?

Now that I have your attention, I can tell you that it's pretty safe. But explosions like the picture on the left can happen. The photo is from the 2007 article "Blast Waves and Fireballs Generated by Hydrogen Fuel Tank Rupture During Fire Exposure" (Robert Zalosh, Firexplo). (Full Disclosure: Bob Zalosh has consulted for me on hydrogen safety issues at Giner Electrochemical Systems, LLC.)

The above black-and-white photo is an infrared image of the 7.7 m-diameter fireball that was taken 45 ms after rupture of a compressed hydrogen tank. This rupture was caused by putting a 265 kW propane burner directly under a hydrogen tank that had been installed in place of the fuel tank under an SUV. All protection normally provided by a pressure/thermal relief device had been disabled, in order to study the resultant explosion. The hydrogen tank failed catastrophically 12 min 18 seconds after the propane burner was ignited. This was obviously an aggressive test, and would likely only occur to a hydrogen-fueled vehicle if a gasoline leak ignited underneath. (I have not searched for documentation of the explosion resulting from a comparable experiment with a gasoline-fueled car, but I imagine the fireball could be bigger than the above hydrogen-fueled fireball!)

Results more favorable to the use of hydrogen as an automotive fuel have been provided by Michael Swain at the University of Miami, in the 2001 U.S Department of Energy-funded paper Fuel Leak Simulation.

H2 car on Left, Gasoline on Right, t = 0

H2 car on Left, Gasoline on Right, t = 0 min 3 sec. Ignition of both fuels occur. Hydrogen flow rate 2100 scfm. Gasoline flow rate 680 cc/min.

Swain set fire to two cars, one fueled by gasoline and the other by hydrogen. The gasoline car had a 1/16" puncture in a fuel line. The hydrogen car had a leaking hydrogen connector.

H2 car on Left, Gasoline on Right, t = 1 min 0 sec. Hydrogen flow is subsiding.

H2 car on Left, Gasoline on Right, t = 1 min 30 sec. Hydrogen flow almost finished.

Gasoline-fueled car, t = 2 min 20 sec. Deflagration in the interior

The gasoline-filled car was completely engulfed in flames by 2 minutes 20 seconds, while the hydrogen car was essentially undamaged. Whereas the gasoline fire started as the result of a simple, small hole in the fuel line, for the hydrogen fire to occur, it would have taken the catastrophic failure of four separate safety systems, all at the same time, a highly unlikely occurrence.

What this blog post shows is that it is oftentimes difficult to compare the safety of alternative technologies. In some evaluations, sometimes "Technology A" is safer, while with other evaluations it turns out that "Technology B" is safer. Bottom line, hydrogen isn't so bad!

Navy R&D 100 Award

One of this year's recently-announced 2011 R&D 100 Awards is the Autonomous vehicles, fossil-fuel free. This "Cryo-Force Power-Cell System" (CFPCS) was developed by Sierra Lobo Inc., Milan, Ohio, with funding from the Department of the Navy, Office of Naval Research (ONR), Arlington, Va., and the Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC), Newport, R.I. The Award states that the CFPCS is "...an integrated, closed-loop liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen [-fueled] proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell system, [and] has been designed to help unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) transition away from large-battery and fossil fuel technologies. ... The significant technological advancement is the integration of cryogenic pure reactants with a fuel cell system while meeting U.S. Navy specifications of storing 50 kg of oxygen and delivering 0.1 to 100 g/min of oxygen to support a 10 kW fuel cell system."

R&D Magazine describes the CFPCS as "Technology: Closed-loop fuel cell power system." Given that this is not what fuel cell people call a closed-loop system (i.e. one that makes its own fuel and oxidizer, A.K.A. a regenerative fuel cell), but merely a fuel cell system that stores it's exhaust (similar to a closed circuit rebreather SCUBA diving system), I thought I'd check for any other product details that needed clarification.

The untitled picture on the left is shown in the R&D Magazine article as if it is a photograph of the new 10 kw Sierra Lobo CFPCS installed in a UUV test bed. Having never heard that the Navy demonstrated a complete cryogenic reactants-based 10 kW PEM fuel cell system in a UUV form factor, I thought I'd look to see what Sierra Lobo has reported. Well, the picture on the right is Sierra Lobo's 1 kWe brassboard test system as it appears on their Unmanned Underwater Vehicle Power Systems page. I had to use Google to find Sierra Lobo's version of the UUV demonstration, and found their YouTube video:

 

I'm confused why Sierra Lobo has not updated their Web site to include a photograph of their UUV brassboard, or a link to their YouTube video!

Hydrogen and Professional Bicycling

During my recent TV viewing of the USA Pro Cycling Challenge, I had a good look at the jerseys of the Garmin-Cervélo team. (Full Disclosure: I own a Cervélo R3 that I love!) I noticed that one of the sponsors was Tata! Tata, in the form of Tata International's Tata Consultancy Services. I believe that this is the first time a company with a fuel cell tie-in has sponsored a professional bike team! (Tata also sponsored the Cervélo Test Team in 2010 before it was combined with Garmin's team.)

Tata's involvement in fuel cells is two-fold:

In the November 22, 2007 Times of India article Tata-ISRO team up to launch hydrogen-powered vehicle, we learn that Tata teamed with the Indian Space Research Organisation on a pilot project to see whether hydrogen can be used to fuel automobiles. Unfortunately, this project apparently got canceled, because I can't find any subsequent announcements by either Tata or ISRO of a hydrogen-powered demonstration vehicle.

October 07, 2010, in Sun Catalytix Corporation completes $9.5-million Series B funding round, Tata announced that it lead the latest round of Sun's funding. Sun Catalytix is a startup spun out from the MIT research lab of Professor Daniel Nocera, commercializing novel electrolyzer technology. In January, 2010, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) selected Sun Catalytix as one of only 37 recipients from over 3600 applicants for ARPA-E's first-round of funding for transformational energy technologies.

Among their conglomerate's activities, Tata also manufactures bicycles and components.

I wonder when the first company specializing in renewable energy will sponsor a pro sports team?

DOE 2011 Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Meeting (Part 2)

In last month's post Daimler/Mercedes-Benz Fuel Cell Claims - Oops!, I mention how Daimler/Mercedes-Benz has tried to take credit for the world's first fuel cell vehicle in 1994, even though General Motors demonstrated a fuel cell vehicle in 1966!

While at the 2011 US DOE Hydrogen and Vehicle Technologies Program Annual Merit Review and Peer Evaluation Meeting, I spoke with a German who was involved with the 1994 Daimler fuel cell demonstration. He confided in me that he had warned Daimler that they were not first, but Daimler made their claim anyway! He said that that was the Daimler way: to paraphrase, "Daimler was the world, and everybody else did not exist."

Oh well...

Daimler/Mercedes-Benz Fuel Cell Claims - Oops!

In my recent post Mercedes Fuel Cell Vehicle PR Tour - Oops!, I discuss how a mistake in a 2011 Daimler press release was repeated in a Bloomberg News story. The mistake concerns bragging rights for performing the world's first demonstration of a fuel cell car! You'd think they'd do a little fact-checking on their press releases!

The 2011 press release claims:

"Mercedes-Benz recognized this potential at an early stage, launching the first vehicle with fuel cell drive, the NECAR 1, as early as 1994." (Left)

Oops!

One of the first hits on my Googling "first fuel cell vehicle" for my earlier post was the hydrogencarsnow.com post 1966 GM Electrovan (left)! Verifying this was a real van was easy, as General Motors has a Fuel Cell Milestones page that confirms its existence. In fact, this earliest fuel cell car is housed at the GM Heritage Center in Sterling Heights, MI.

So I checked to see if the Daimler mistake that was made in their 2011 press release was an isolated incident, or if they made similar mistakes in earlier releases. Guess what -- I easily found ten (10!) Daimler press releases saying the same thing! (Then I stopped counting.) The earliest I found, dated Nov 8, 2007, Daimler AG to Become Majority Stakeholder in New "Automotive Fuel Cell Cooperation", says:

"A pioneer in fuel cell technology, Daimler introduced the world’s first fuel cell vehicle as early as 1994."

I also found a similar 2007 Ford press release: DAIMLER AG, FORD MOTOR COMPANY TO BECOME PRIMARY STAKEHOLDERS IN NEW AUTOMOTIVE FUEL CELL COOPERATION. The Ford version, slightly modifying the Daimler text, says:

"A pioneer in fuel cell technology, Daimler introduced the world’s first fuel cell vehicle in 1994."

So the 2011 mistake is not simply a matter of semantics, or a bad translation from the German. The truth is that for years Daimler has believed that they made the first fuel cell vehicle!

I sent an email to the Daimler PR people to see if they'd correct their most recent over-statement, given their pattern of mis-statements. After some back and forth with Matthias Brock (Research, Development and Environmental Communications, Head of Media Relations, Daimler AG), he told me they would not correct the press release. On the plus side, he at least said "You are right - we could have been a little bit more precise by saying 'Mercedes-Benz recognised this potential at an early stage, launching ITS first vehicle with fuel cell drive, the NECAR 1, as early as 1994.'", as well as  "Thanks Keith, we are going to take that into account in the future."

The only problem is that the Internet Archive, as well as Google and everyone else, now have an extensive record that claims that Daimler/Mercedes-Benz had the first fuel cell vehicle. Poor GM is not getting the credit for being 18 years ahead of Daimler!

Global Observer - Oops!

Edwards Air Force Base            (Craig Butz photo)

AeroVironment (AV) had quite an April Fool's Day event!

At 2:30 am PDT on April 1, 2010, the liquid hydrogen-fueled Global Observer unmanned air vehicle (UAV) "experienced a mishap" during extended duration flight testing. Personnel at Edwards Air Force base, where the Global Observer testing was based, report that it crashed. The crash occurred approximately 18 hours into its 9th test flight. The Global Observer was conducting "envelope expansion" flight testing, flying higher and for a longer duration than it had previously. Crash details are sparse, probably because AV has been ordered by the US government not to discuss the accident until after an investigation was completed. Crashes during developmental testing are not unusual, as Northrop Grumman suffered from the loss of a prototype RQ-4 Global Hawk during flights in 1999.

In my previous post, Hydrogen for 65,000 Feet, I discuss how the Global Observer was designed to fly for five to seven days, powered by liquid hydrogen, at altitudes up to 65,000 feet. Design criteria included 2.8 kilowatts (kW) of power for a 380-lb. payload, and a liquid hydrogen-fueled internal combustion engine producing about 60 kW of electricity.

AV received a US$140 million contract in September 2007 for a Joint Capability Technology Demonstration (JCTD) of the Global Observer (GO-1). Three GO-1s were planned on being built under the JCTD, jointly overseen by six U.S. government agencies. The second air vehicle is nearing completion at the AV factory. The third unit was supposed to be a backup, but it has not been discussed since the order was announced in June 2009. AV has recently stated that most of the funding for the program has been spent.

The worst part for AV is that this high-profile crash comes after another high-profile crash 8 years ago. On June 26, 2003, the NASA-funded Helios prototype UAV broke up and fell into the Pacific Ocean about 30 minutes after take-off from Kauai, in the Hawaiian islands. Helios had been quite a successful UAV, because on August 14, 2001, Helios set a world record for a winged aircraft at an altitude of 96,863 feet (29,523.8 m). Unlike Global Observer, Helios had solar cells, an electrolyzer supplied by Giner Electrochemical Systems designed to produce hydrogen and oxygen for storage, and a fuel cell fueled by the hydrogen and oxygen to produce power overnight.

According to Wikipedia,

"The (Helios) investigation report identified a two-part root cause of the accident:

1. Lack of adequate analysis methods led to an inaccurate risk assessment of the effects of configuration changes leading to an inappropriate decision to fly an aircraft configuration highly sensitive to disturbances.

2. Configuration changes to the aircraft, driven by programmatic and technological constraints, altered the aircraft from a spanloader to a highly point-loaded mass distribution on the same structure significantly reducing design robustness and margins of safety."

Hopefully AV can quickly get beyond this latest tragedy to continue their groundbreaking work. And hopefully the conclusions of the Global Observer investigation are not as painful as those of the Helios investigation. AV better hurry, though, as Boeing plans to fly its company-funded Phantom Eye hydrogen-fueled high-altitude, long endurance (HALE) UAV demonstrator at Edwards later this year, and Aurora Flight Sciences hopes to fly their Orion twin diesel engine-powered, five-day-endurance medium-altitude UAV this year under an Air Force-sponsored JCTD.

 (Boeing photo)         (S. Schaeffer-Hopkins photo)